Bump Trolling for Swordfish
(Originally published September/October 2016)
By Seth Funt & Michael Grant, Team Three Buoys
Over a decade ago we only fished for swordfish at night. This was back before daytime swordfishing became in vogue with the advent of specialized electric reels, high-strength ultrathin braided lines and the techniques spawned from the marriage of the two.
Back then, our standard fishing method consisted of drifting over bottom structure with a six-rod spread from a dead boat at night. Our nighttime dead boat drift spread was typically set up as follows: three balloon rods set at 100 feet, 200 feet, and 300 feet; two tip rods that were constantly manned and alternated between 500 feet and the surface; and one flat-line bait just far enough back to be on the dark side of the underwater light ring illuminated around the boat from either a Hydro Glow light or underwater LED boat lights.
After many years of hard work and trial and error, we began to observe a couple patterns that we experienced time and time again.
